From the Archives: December 18, 1944: Japanese exclusion order revoked

The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year.

Monday, December 18, 1944

In 1944 the War Department announced it was ending its policy of excluding people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.

More than 110,000 Japanese-Americans in the United States, including more than 2,000 from San Diego, had their lives uprooted when they were forced to live in relocation camps as a defense measure beginning in 1942.

The action was later recognized as injustice caused by race prejudice and wartime hysteria.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the story:

Order Excluding Japanese From Pacific Coast Revoked

Mayor Studies Effects on S.D.

Return of Evacuees To Create Problems.

Return of Japanese-American to San Diego under the revocation of the mass Japanese evacuation order by the western defense command is bound to create community problems whose solution will be sought in a study that will be made as soon as possible, Mayor Harley E. Knox said yesterday from his Mercy hospital bed. The mayor is recovering from recent plane crash injuries.

More than 2000 Japanese-Americans, the majority of the citizens and many of them natives of San Diego, left the county voluntarily or were evacuated after Pearl Harbor.

Mayors and other civic officials have been advised by Gov. Earl Warren to call conferences with the purpose of designing plans to prevent controversy or “intemperate action.”

COLONIES FORMED HERE

The governor’s proclamation, received here by the sheriff’s office stated that under the revocation, to become effective Jan. 2, all evacuated Japanese-Americans.

Under the exclusion order, 1150 adults and children were evacuated from the southern half of the country to the Santa Anita reception center in special trains on April 7, 1942, and those from the northern half left soon afterward.

ACCEPTED SITUATION

Although forced to dispose hurriedly of business interest and most of their household possessions through sale or transfer to management of the alien property custodian, the majority of the Japanese-Americans apparently accepted the order philosophically. While waiting for the two 16-car trains to pull out here, Sam Fujita, local executive secretary of the Japanese-American Citizens league, told reporters that “it is part of our duty as Americans to go.”